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New Chairman for the Sentencing Council: appointment of Lord Justice Holroyde

Lord Justice Tim Holroyde has been appointed as Chairman of the Sentencing Council, with effect from 1 August 2018.

His appointment was made by the Lord Chief Justice with the agreement of the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, David Gauke, and is for an initial period of three years.

The Lord Chief Justice and President of the Sentencing Council, the Rt Hon The Lord Burnett of Maldon, said:

“With his extensive experience at the criminal bar and on the bench, and his three years on the Council, Lord Justice Holroyde is the ideal candidate to lead the Council through the next phase of its important work and build on its excellent legacy.”

Lord Justice Holroyde said:

“The Sentencing Council is facing a challenging and busy time as it approaches its tenth anniversary. I look forward to taking forward the ambitious work programme that will meet the Council’s goals for 2020.

“My aim is for the Council to continue to provide judges and magistrates with guidelines which promote a clear, fair and consistent approach to sentencing, but which are also accessible to the public so they can see how sentencing works and have greater confidence in the sentencing process.”

Lord Justice Holroyde, who has been a judicial member of the Sentencing Council since April 2015, was called to the Bar (Middle Temple) in 1977. He joined chambers in Liverpool and, between 1978 and 2008, practised on the Northern Circuit.

Having become an Assistant Recorder in 1994, he was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1996 and a Recorder in 1997. He was appointed to the High Court (Queen’s Bench Division) in January 2009, and was a Presiding Judge of the Northern Circuit between 2012 and 2015. He was appointed to the Court of Appeal in October 2017.

He has been a Bencher of Middle Temple since 2005.

Throughout his career as a barrister, Lord Justice Holroyde prosecuted and defended in criminal cases of all kinds , including prosecuting the long trial arising out of the drowning of 23 Chinese cocklepickers in Morecambe Bay. As a judge, he has presided over a number of notable cases, including the trial of Anjem Choudary and Mohammed Rahman in 2016 for terrorist-related offences, the trial of Asil Nadir in 2012 for offences of theft from the company Polly Peck, and the trial of Dale Cregan in 2013 for crimes including the murder of PC Fiona Bone and PC Nicola Hughes.